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The Five Senses, Touch

Gonzales Coquesca. 1650

Brukenthal National Museum

Brukenthal National Museum
Sibiu, Romania

The series of paintings illustrating the Five Senses reveals a clearly Baroque sensibility, evident in the artist’s capacity to capture the psychology of his sitters, the portrait’s realism resulting from the artist’s skill in capturing the spontaneity of a fleeting moment. Gonzales Coques painted two other series of paintings devoted to the five senses, of which one is currently in the National Gallery, London. In the series in the Brukenthal Art Gallery, the painter emphasizes the psychological states of his sitters, apparently common people, from the lower middle class. In this series, the attributes of the senses only serve as pretexts, to include in the composition a number of static elements (tables laden with food, musical notes, smoking paraphernalia, medical instruments, and an easel). The painting that carries the greatest psychological charge in this series is Touch, because the experience rendered is pain, and its attribute is not an object, as in the other paintings, but a wound. Contemplating this picture will surely induce a state of empathy with the man depicted, facilitated by the frontal presentation of the sitter, who looks us straight in the eye, with dolorous eyes, that crave our compassion. ©Dana Roxana Hrib, European Art Gallery Guidebook, Second edition, Sibiu 2011.

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  • Title: The Five Senses, Touch
  • Creator Lifespan: 1614 - 1684
  • Creator Nationality: Flemish
  • Creator Gender: Male
  • Creator Death Place: Antwerp
  • Creator Birth Place: Antwerp
  • Date: ca. 1650
  • artist: GONZALES COQUES
  • Physical Dimensions: w57.5 x h73 cm (without frame)
  • Collecting: Brukenthal National Museum, Sibiu, Romania
  • Artist Biography: Gonzales Coques was born in Antwerp, the city where he was to spend his entire life. At the age of 12, he was apprenticed to the portrait painter Pieter, son of Hell Brueghel; later he became an ardent student of still lives, under the supervision of David Ryckaert the Younger. At the age of 26, he was admitted to the Guild of Saint Luke. His career was quite successful; in 1641 he was elected Guild Master and in 1671 he became painter to the Governor General of the Low Countries, Count Monterey, keeping his position under successive administrations. ©Dana Roxana Hrib, European Art Gallery Guidebook, Second edition, Sibiu 2011.
  • Provenance: Brukenthal National Museum
  • Type: Painting
  • Medium: oil on canvas
Brukenthal National Museum

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